Few big cities anywhere plunge more whole-heartedly into the pleasures of winter than Minneapolis. Every weekend during the winter some 110,000 Minneapolitans stream into the city's many large parks where there are fine steep slopes for coasting. When the snow is fresh and heavy, small fry by the hundred- and a smattering of nostalgic larger fry deploy over the hills of such popular parks as Powderhorn Lake and Theodore Wirth. They have dozens of sleds, but the...Read the rest of this Life magazine article

For years Americans driving their big-slick gas gulpers have been perennially teased with rumors of new, small, efficient cars that would serve for normal driving and still cost less than a matched string of pearls. Most of these have turned out to be pipe dreams or, like Nash's N.X.I. projects for the future. But this week, at the Chicago Automobile Show, drivers will at last get... Read the rest of this article

First England fell, victim of a million girlish screams. Then, last week, Paris surrendered. Now the U.S. must brace itself. The Beatles are coming and already teen-age Americans are as keyed up as the days, only a dim decade ago, when Elvis first came twisting on. The Beatles? They are the four shrewdly goofy-looking lads. Fifteen months ago they were singing their songs in a smoky Liverpool jazz cellar. A talent scout took them and their haircuts to London. Today their records have sold five million copics in England and they are a national institution, seemingly as solid as Big Ben and a lot louder. Their musical style embellished standard rock 'n' roll with a jackhammer beat and high screams that would do a steam calliope proud...Read the rest of this article.

Last week an era in U.S. history came to an end in a factory in Pontiac, Mich. 25 miles north of Detroit. At exactly 1:31 p.m. on Feb. 2, the last pleasure car that will be made until the war is won rolled off the assembly line in Pontiac's Plant A. Other famous maker – Ford, Plymouth. Studebaker and the rest—had already ended production. Now the $4,000,000,000-a-year auto industry had only one customer and only one boss - the U.S. Government-at-war.

There are, really, two Dinah Shores: the Basie Dinah and the Adaptable Dinah. They add up to America's most successful TV actress, seen by 32 million viewers of NBC's Chevy Show. The show, with its stylish snap and homey warmth, reflects perfectly the Total Dinah, The Basic Dinah was brought up in Nashville, with nice southern manners-which she has kept. She has a good husband-whom she has also kept. Her natural verve made her a cheerleader in high school and college, and her voice won her New York radio job with another unknown named Frank Sinatra, who was so awed by her ladylike ways that he once socked a man for saying a dirty word in front of her. In the TV studio-and at home, where she is the same sunny girl TV loves—the Basic Dinah has a female sense of the fitness of things. She has kept many of the same staff around her for years. She is not at war with others because she is not at war with herself.